The MetaLearn podcast has reached the big 5-0. The show is now in 127 countries with listeners on every continent and is growing rapidly – in fact in the first 3 months of 2017, the podcast had 40% more downloads than the whole of 2016! In today’s special episode you’ll have the chance to hear my reflections on learning and education after fifty episodes of the podcast. I'm interviewed by Joshua Fields, who was the very first guest on the podcast. Josh is a mental and physical health expert with...
Mar 28, 2017•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast They're two words that get thrown around a lot but what exactly is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Knowledge is something closer to what the Ancient Greeks called Episteme – a specialised knowledge in a particular field or an ability in a skill that's descriptive or explanatory in nature. Wisdom is something that’s harder to define but it’s closer to what the Greeks called Phronesis – it’s a more general understanding of how to live a good life and the decisions we should make. In t...
Mar 21, 2017•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ben Medder is a movement coach who has trained in martial arts, athletics and parkour. He’s taken inspiration from the likes of Ido Portal, best known for his work with MMA fighter Connor McGregor, and the Fighting Monkey and Evolve Move Play Methods. Many people don't identify as being athletic but physical skills can be learned like anything else. While you're not going to become the next Usain Bolt by doing a few sprint sessions, it's easier than most people think to get good at a sport. As s...
Mar 14, 2017•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast In modern society, learning has become synonymous with taking in information passively and retaining it. Students view teachers as people who are supposed to deliver information into their heads so that they can recall it when required. But this is the one of the most damaging misconceptions we carry into our lives because the truth is that all learning is active. It isn’t a process of having something done to you – it’s a process of you doing something to yourself. The best teachers all underst...
Mar 07, 2017•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Barbara Oakley is an educator and writer who’s empowering people all over the world to learn more effectively. Barb is best known for her role as the lead instructor on Coursera’s Learning How To Learn – the most popular online course in the world last year – and her bestselling book A Mind for Numbers. For all the hours we spend in school it's remarkable that we're never taught how to learn. This is even more surprising when recent developments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience mean that...
Feb 28, 2017•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is it really possible to learn from animals? For thousands of years, all kinds of authorities have been repeating the idea that we humans are exceptional and by far the most intelligent in the animal kingdom. So it’s easy to see why we humans think we’re much smarter than animals – but is that actually the case? The fact that animals don’t understand us in some ways, and that we don’t understand them in others implies our intelligences are different. But different in kind rather than rather in l...
Feb 21, 2017•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast In ancient cultures, mythology served a number of other important functions on an individual and personal level which may not be immediately obvious. On a personal level mythology created a sense of awe about the mystery of human existence. By creating this sense of wonder, mythology helped people to learn about their own lives in a way that few other fields could. On a social level, mythology educated people about how they fit into the group they lived in. Rituals would help to mark the differe...
Feb 14, 2017•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zahra Davidson is a multidisciplinary designer innovating in education by encouraging people to learn in communities. She is the founder of Enrol Yourself, an organization that gives people the structure and support to pursue learning marathons (long term learning projects) with other lifelong learners. When we leave school we often miss out on one of the most important components of learning anything - community. Communities allow us to learn from others, assess our performance level and share ...
Feb 07, 2017•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Children are full of life. They're constantly growing and learning. They embody curiosity and the creative spirit. And these are all qualities we could all use more of in every area of our lives. We become so used to learning things we don’t really want to at school and university that we stop asking questions. We forget what it’s actually like to learn something we love and to learn it in a way that’s fun and enjoyable. But the good news is that every one of us can rediscover that boundless cur...
Jan 31, 2017•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist and writer who is committed to exploring the mysteries of the brain and mind. He is best known for his book The Master and His Emissary in which he explores the differences between the brain's right and left hemispheres and their effects on history and culture over the centuries. Most scientists have long abandoned the attempt to understand why nature separated the brain's hemispheres. But anyone who knows anything about the area would say there are differen...
Jan 24, 2017•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most people over estimate how hard it is to learn a new skill because they confuse getting good at something with becoming a master in it. This short episode will give you a simple framework to take you from the novice, beginner stage to an intermediate level of proficiency as enjoyably and effectively as possible in the skill you want to learn. In this episode you'll learn how to: - Filter learning projects in order to choose the ones you're likely to stick with - Build strategies based on the ...
Jan 17, 2017•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast The idea that we all learn differently has been appropriated by various theorists who suggest that most of us can be placed into one of several predefined categories - or learning styles. While I’m reluctant to promote one specific category set when it comes to learning, I think the process of looking at them can be helpful in getting you to reflect on your own experience and understand what works best for you. So in this episode, I’ll outline some areas that I think are important to pay attenti...
Jan 10, 2017•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this short episode I review what I learned in 2016, sharing my successes and failures in everything from the process of starting a podcast, to holding discussion groups as a university lecturer and pursuing my own language learning projects. In ancient Roman myth, Janus was the god of transitions. The early part of January, named after Janus, was traditionally seen as a time for reflection on the year gone by and planning the year ahead - a process of looking forwards with one head and backwa...
Jan 03, 2017•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ellen Jovin is a polyglot, writer and the founder of Syntaxis, a communication skills training firm based in New York. In 2009, she started a project to learn as much as she could of the languages spoken in New York in a year. But once she started, she never stopped - her schedule has included 21 different languages involving a total of nine different alphabets and writing systems - and she’s still going strong with no end in sight. Ellen’s an accomplished polyglot and an excellent communicator ...
Dec 27, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shane Parrish is the founder of Farnam Street, an online intellectual hub that covers topics like human misjudgment, strategy, and philosophy to help readers make better decisions. We all make decisions every day which ultimately affect the results we get in our lives. But so few of us ever stop to think critically about the process we use for making those decisions, let alone try to improve it. Shane has spent years thinking and writing about decision making, drawing on multiple disciplines and...
Dec 20, 2016•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Levi Harris is an actor, filmmaker and polyglot who runs the accent coaching business My Accent Guy. Michael trained at the Guildhall School in London as an actor and has since been involved in a number of theatre productions. He also wrote and starred in the short film 'The Hyperglot'. Actors are masters of using body language and non-verbal communication to develop characters and connect with an audience. But these techniques have many applications across disciplines from language lear...
Dec 13, 2016•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Paddy Milner is a musician and songwriter who’s widely recognised as one of the leading blues piano players in the world. He’s currently the piano player of choice for Sir Tom Jones, following several years with the late great Jack Bruce and his current group Londonola plays homegrown British music with a strong dose of New Orleans spirit. On top of being an exceptional musician, Paddy is also a great teacher and has produced several blues piano courses for different levels. This makes him the p...
Dec 06, 2016•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast The human brain is a remarkable tool but so few of us actually know how to use it properly. Advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology mean that we now know more about the brain than at any point in history, so there's a whole host of knowledge out there that can help us understand and use our brains better. This episode will introduce you to the weird and wonderful world of the brain, showing you how to understand your own one better and how to apply some of the major insights from neuro...
Nov 29, 2016•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Luca Lampariello is a polyglot and language teacher who runs his own language learning company LinguaCore and the highly popular blog The Polyglot Dream. Luca speaks 13 languages and is currently fluent in 10 of them but he’s always adding more to his repertoire. One of the main reasons I love learning languages is because speaking them is an amazing way to connect to other people and cultures and Luca is big proponent of this as well. To put it simply, he's my kind of polyglot! In this episode ...
Nov 22, 2016•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Language learning seems far more complicated than it is. Ultimately it's a skill that can be broken down into three sub skills - grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation - which you'll need to develop to get to a good level of proficiency. But one of the things that's rarely discussed is the importance of community for language learning. This is something I've experienced on my language learning journey and my time at the Polyglot Conference in Greece. In this episode I’ll teach you how to become a...
Nov 15, 2016•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mariana Marquez and Emma Zangs are two public speaking coaches and choreographers, who teach people to speak better and improve their body language through their company MetaSpeech. One of the things that gives the most bang for the buck in public speaking is good body language, but it's something people often ignore and fail to improve. As choreographers and movement directors Mariana and Emma bring a fresh perspective to the world of public speaking and they’ve successfully coached clients sec...
Nov 08, 2016•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julian Treasure is a communications expert, acclaimed TED Speaker and the founder of The Sound Agency, a consultancy that helps businesses improve their results by becoming more conscious about their sound. Studies have shown that we spend 60% of our communication time listening but the average person can only remember 10% of that 3 days later. And every one of us needs to learn how to listen better, especially in a world full of noise. As an expert on sound and listening Julian is perfectly pla...
Nov 01, 2016•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Richard Nisbett is the Theodore Newcomb Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Michigan and has written 3 great books for a lay audience on mental models, the nature of intelligence and how thinking differs across cultures. Understanding the patterns behind our thought processes is a crucial part of developing self awareness and improving as learners, as we're often subject to cognitive biases that take us down the wrong path. Richard has spent decades researching thinking across co...
Oct 25, 2016•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast The future of learning will be determined by a number of key issues - from the impact of technology and the rise of EdTech, to the evolution of the educational system and the need for lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts. In this episode I explore all of these issues in depth and answer the question I always ask guests at the end of my podcast interviews - "What's your vision for the future of learning?" Plus I answer your questions including: - Is there a way to increase the ...
Oct 18, 2016•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jordan Poulton is the co-founder of Makers Academy, London's leading Web Developer Bootcamp which teaches you how to code in just 12 Weeks. He is a former president of Oxford Entrepreneurs and previously appeared on the BBC’s hit show The Apprentice in 2013. Coding is arguably the skill with the fastest growing demand in the modern economy and more people are looking to acquire the skill every year. But coding is a challenging skill to learn and people are often unsure where to start. Jordan wen...
Oct 12, 2016•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ed Cooke is the founder of Memrise, an online platform that uses memory techniques to optimise learning. Ed has also previously competed in memory sports and became a Grand Master of Memory when he was just 23. Human memory is something that few people understand well but the secrets behind improving it are both simple and fun. Ed is someone who has applied these techniques to himself and his business Memire and even coached US journalist Josh Foer to win the US memory championships, which makes...
Oct 04, 2016•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tom Chatfield is a author and speaker who’s written several books about the digital age. He’s also worked with several companies as a consultant including Google and Mind Candy and spoken at forums including TED Global. We all need to think more critically about how we interact with digital technology, because the secret to living and learning well with it is not related to which devices we use, but to how we use them. Tom has spoken and written about the use of technology in a number of differe...
Sep 27, 2016•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Not everyone can go down as a master orator like Lincoln, King or Churchill, but we can all learn to become better speakers. And in an age where ideas are the main currency, being able to communicate them effectively is a huge advantage. Plus, we spend 30% of our communication time speaking, whether it’s in a presentation at work or a conversation with a friend – so it’s definitely a skill worth working on. In this episode, I break down the strategies of some of the greatest speakers, both ancie...
Sep 20, 2016•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rob Fitzpatrick is a serial entrepreneur who teaches early-stage entrepreneurship in Europe via his company Founder Centric. Rob is a Y Combinator alum and is the author of The Mom Test, a handbook on customer development that teaches you how to learn from customers even when they’re lying to you. One of the most crucial parts of building a successful business is developing a rounded skillset that allows you to build products that solve problems and forge relationships with customers and partner...
Sep 13, 2016•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Studies on listening have show that we spend 60% of our communication time listening and that the average person can only remember 10% of that 3 days later. For a skill that we need to use so often and neglect so heavily, you’d think that listening was pretty useless. But this couldn’t be further from the truth because every one of us needs to learn how to become a better listener. In this episode, I show you how to become a better listener by offering a series of practical tools and techniques ...
Sep 06, 2016•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
